FISH DEATHS

ONE of the few things that growing old has in its favour is the ability to observe current interpretation of history against what you actually saw happen in real time.

During a trip from Cobar to Broken Hill in late 1949 or early 1950, my family stopped at Wilcannia for lunch. During this break my brothers and I went down to the bridge over the Darling River. In the waterhole under the bridge were thousands of dead fish and local Aboriginals were spearing large Murray cod with improvised fist spears made out of broom handles and fencing wire.

On asking locals what had happened to the fish, we were told this occurred after long periods of no water coming down the river because of prolonged drought. This situation was rectified soon after by massive floods in the years from 1950 to 1956.

The observation I am taking from this is that over time this has been a natural occurrence and that it could be nature’s way of renewal of fish stocks due to over population.

It must also be noted that the fish were back in the river for the most recent cleanout. The large amount of media and government concern has created a situation where blame must be attached to someone or to an industry.

The irrigaters along the river and its tributaries have been targeted.

If an unbiased investigation was carried out it would become clear that most major floods pass down the river system and reach the sea. The smaller flows don’t make it all the way.

Conservation of large flows are held in off river storage and dams or weirs and released over time rather than just going down river in a major flood.

The Murray River joins the Darling and fish can migrate to the Darling from the Murray maintaining fish stocks when the rains come.

There are fewer river storage dams on the Darling than on the Murray due to a lack of good sites and also the history of large flows being less often due to the drier interior.

C. MORRIS, Centenary Heights